


Atonement

by meddie_flow



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Confessions, Gen, Missing Scene, Resolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 07:09:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11846514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meddie_flow/pseuds/meddie_flow
Summary: Missing scene post S7E4. Theon visits Jon and confesses his guilt. Jon decides what to do with Theon.





	Atonement

**Author's Note:**

> What it says on the tin. After S7E4, I believed the reunion scene between Jon and Theon to be too short. I needed more resolution for them and, while I still hope the show will bring that later on, I decided to write my own take on the events.

The candles burn as Jon is waiting on his bed, in the room given to him by Daenerys Targaryen, the Dragon Queen. He can’t rest, because all the events of the day are rushing through his mind. Daenerys is a quiet, imposing force that has made quite the impression on Jon. But still he needs to persuade her to join his fight, because, if not, all will be lost. And then Theon Greyjoy appears, flippantly speaking to Jon as if his deeds had suddenly disappeared, as if he didn’t betray Robb.  
  
As Jon paces around his room, he hears a knock on the door, feeble, as if the person on the other side of the door isn’t quite sure if they want to be heard.  
  
”Who is it?” Jon asks.  
  
The answer is as feeble as the knock on the door.  
  
”Please open, Jon. It is I… Theon Greyjoy. I haven’t come to fight with you”.  
  
Jon wrings the door open, looking at Theon who seems skittish in the corridor, looking as if a gust of wind could make him lose his balance. He’s withered as if he were a wight of the Night King’s Army, but there’s nonetheless a strange steadiness about him, a certain resolve in his eyes.  
  
”What do you want?”  
  
”I need to talk to you. There are some things that… that I need you to hear.”  
  
”I don’t need to hear anything from you. What is there to say? I don’t want you to open your mouth because there’s no explaining what you did, there’s no possible excuse for it. I meant what I said. If you hadn’t saved Sansa, I’d have killed you as soon as I laid eyes on you!” Jon spits at him, with the scorn and the pain he’d pushed down, but now Theon’s visit is bringing everything to the surface. He can”t believe the gall of Theon Greyjoy, to show himself up on his door. And for what? He doesn’t understand Theon’s intentions. And he’s becoming more and more furious with him.  
  
In the light of the torch on the wall, Theon looks as if he’s struggling to speak, to find the words. His whole body is drawing in on him, as if he’s trying to become smaller, to occupy less space.  
  
”Please. I… I won’t take much of your time.”  
  
Jon relents and lets Theon enter his room, though he stays close to the door, as if he doesn’t dare to get too close to Jon. Theon takes a deep breath and speaks, though his words seem strangled, at first.  
  
„I’m so sorry, Jon. I know I don’t even have the right to say that. That what I did was so horrible that my apologies sound like a mockery. But I’m not mocking you. There hasn’t been one day since… then, that I didn’t think about what I did, that I didn’t remember my decision and wished I could take it back. But I can’t. I should be dead. I should have died with Robb. Instead of Robb. Believe me that I… that if I could switch places with him so that Robb could be here and I in his grave, I would.”  
  
Theon has been looking away while speaking, as if he doesn”t bring himself to look Jon in the eye. His confession has poured out of him, as if it had been something bottled up for too long, dying to get out. He lifts his gaze now and looks at him, and the pain in his raspy voice seems genuine to Jon. But that doesn’t make it any better. Jon is torn between his anger at the sight of Theon and his confusion. He’s angered by Theon’s attempt to speak with him and by the way Robb’s name drops from his lips. But he hasn’t expected a confession out of him.  
  
However, he has a question of his own, brought about by the one action which doesn’t fit with his image of Theon the Turncoat.  
  
”Why did you save Sansa?”  
  
”Sansa was my sister.” Jon opens his mouth in protest, ready to stop him, as that one sentence fuels his anger.  
  
”No… let me, please.” Theon says, and the words seem to come to him with such difficulty, that Jon stops in his tracks and lets him continue. ”I couldn’t let Ramsay hurt her more. Because I knew what he was capable of. And she didn’t deserve any of it.”  
  
Theon takes a deep breath.  
  
”Sansa was my sister, and Robb my brother. And Ned Stark was my true father, the father who raised me. I betrayed my brother, Jon. My true family, if not by blood. What’s left of the Starks are you and Sansa, the only ones who can punish me for what I did. Jon… I thought about going to the Wall before my… before Ramsay Bolton had me, but I didn’t, because I knew you’d have my head. Sansa told me to go to you after we escaped, but I couldn’t. I fled, like the coward I am. But now… Jon, you are the one who will pass the sentence on me. There is no one else. And if it is you who will swing the sword… I can only accept it.”  
  
Theon drops to his knees, but keeps looking Jon in the eyes.  
  
”My life, I don’t know why I still have it. For years I was not Theon Greyjoy. I was… someone else. And now that I call myself Theon again, I do it just to help Yara. But I should have died time ago. I feel numb, I feel like I have died. I can never repay you or Sansa for what I did. Not even with my life. What is my life compared to his?”  
  
Theon’s voice shows the depth of such pain and desperation, that Jon can only keep listening to him. He doesn’t doubt now that Theon is sincere. As he can see no gain that could be had from asking Jon to end his life. If it is a ploy, if he plans to betray Jon as he did Robb, it isn’t likely. It fits with Jon’s image of Theon of old, of his smirking mouth and his cutting remarks and his arrogance. But not with the misery on this Theon”s face, who looks so old and battered, so wretched.  
  
”It’s your decision, Jon. To pass judgement on me and tell my what my fate is to be. It has come to this.” Theon trudges on, with a mixture of resolve and fear. He sounds to Jon as if he’s afraid to die, as if he’s afraid of everything and yet he pushes on, because he wants justice, he wants absolution, even if only death could bring that to him.  
  
”My life is forfeit. It’s yours for the taking. All I ask of you is borrowed time.” And here Theon’s eyes and voice seem pleading, as if he were afraid Jon would decide to strike him on the spot. ”I need to go find my sister and bring her back. Because I have a duty to her as well. A duty I haven’t kept.”  
  
Jon finds it ironic that Theon, who was the bane of Jon’s existence when they were boys – a lifetime ago – has chosen him to be his judge and executioner, has put his life in his hands. Jon doesn’t doubt Theon is hurt and broken. And that his guilt is sincere. And yet Jon wants Theon to face everything. If he’s decided he wants to confess, then Job wants to hear him bring all of it in the open. No pretty words of atonement, he wants to see the ugly truth at the beginning as well.  
  
”Why did you betray Robb?”  
Theon forces himself to look Jon in the eye. His face scrunches as if he’s trying to hold his tears, but his voice breaks when he speaks.  
  
”You know why. Because I was an arrogant idiot who thought he deserved everything handed to him. Because I was stupid and proud and angry that Ned Stark had taken me from my birth father. I wanted to show my worth and since I didn’t have any I… I betrayed Robb, who had always been good to me. And I killed two children to make it look like they were Bran and Rickon. And then Robb died… If I’d been by his side, if I stayed true to him and been his ally… then maybe…”  
  
His voice breaks into a sob, and Jon lets him cry, watches as Theon struggles to get himself back together, but can’t manage to, as if this storm of tears should have started a long time ago but only now Theon has allowed himself to cry, thinking maybe he didn’t deserve to.  
  
Jon approaches Theon and touches his face. Theon’s first reaction is to cower in fright, but he makes himself still, freezing there with his tears trailing down on his cheeks. He looks at Jon.  
  
”So you say you’ve come to me to judge you for your crimes. And you say your life isn”t enough to repay for what you”ve done.”  
  
Theon is still in front of him. In his eyes, Jon sees that he believes his words. He’s awaiting his sentence, Jon knows.  
  
”I’m not going to take your life. You saved Sansa and that shows, for all your deeds, that you are not a monster. That there is still goodness in you.”  
  
Theon is trembling like a leaf under his hand, as if these words cut to the center of him worse than any accusations Jon could have brought.  
  
”Save your sister and regain your Islands. And bring all your men to fight the danger beyond the Wall. You’re no good to anyone dead, Theon Greyjoy. There is still much that you can do to help in the fight that is to come, that concerns as all.”  
  
”And you’d have me fight beside you?” Theon asks, his voice low.  
  
”You and every man who still has breath in him and won’t run away like a coward. You’ve come to me prepared to give your life, but I won’t have you give it away for nothing. This is your chance to redeem yourself, Theon. ”  
  
Theon’s face changes from weary hurt and despaired pain, to disbelief. And then a new conviction starts to form in his eyes, and his words sound steady when he begins speaking.  
  
”Yes. I’ll go. I’ll find Yara and we’ll try to take back the Iron Islands from my uncle. And if we do, our fleet will be yours to command, Jon. And I will go fight the dead for you. For you and for… Robb and all the rest that I wronged.”  
  
Theon looks at him with great intensity, as if Jon’s given his life new purpose. He gets up and says to him, not breaking his gaze.  
”I’ll go now, leave you to your rest. But I won’t forget your kindness, Jon Snow. You were always the more worthy of the two of us. I think that deeply I knew it even back then, when we were boys. I’ll come back to aid you.”  
  
Theon goes, holding himself straight as if by sheer effort of his will.  
  
Jon remains in his room, closing the door after Theon’s departure. He stays and remembers. All the childhood moments, when he and Robb and Theon would play as brothers. Theon’s beauty and jokes, his skill as a marksman, his ambition. Robb’s strength, his kindness to both of them. He can’t believe time has passed, can’t believe that Robb is dead and that Theon is so changed, hardened and twisted by his deeds, by his suffering, by his guilt. For Jon, it’s been a shock to see Theon show such humility. But he has faith that he’ll come through, that Jon’s words will give him the strength needed to save a sister and to win back a throne he probably doesn’t even want anymore. All to redeem himself and put his life in service of something greater than the workings of his shame. Jon Snow believes in Theon Greyjoy. If somebody had told him yesterday that, he’d have believed that person to be a madman. And yet he does. Because he’d seen in the heart of him, and it had been torn, but it had been true.


End file.
